He nodded. ‘I will make discreet enquiries. A man with half an ear serving a great man of the realm . . .’

‘The page said one of the great personages of the realm.’

He studied me closely. ‘You mean the Lady Mary? That she might have sent Jane Fool to steal the book that evening after all?’

‘We must make absolutely sure the Queen dropped no hint about the book to Jane.’

Lord Parr shook his head. ‘Jane has always appeared a natural idiot.’

‘Perhaps. Yet her speech, even though childish, is fluent. And sometimes one can be – indiscreet – before fools.’

He nodded, taking the point, but said, ‘The Queen would not be. Not on this. And as I said before, the Lady Mary has stayed strictly orthodox for a decade. Nonetheless, I will speak to the Queen about Jane. Though even that theory begs the question of how someone managed to get the coffer open yet leave no signs of forced entry.’ He sighed. ‘Thank you, Master Shardlake, we may be starting to make progress. Now, the Queen is still with the King. A good time for us to take a look at the coffer. Come.’

THE QUEEN’S BEDCHAMBER overlooked the river. It was a large, feminine room, richly scented, with flowers in vases and large embroidered cushions scattered on the floor where one might lie and read. A huge four-poster bed dominated the room. There was a desk, bare save for an ornate inkwell: here, at this desk, the Queen had written Lamentation of a Sinner. Next to the desk stood a solid wooden chest, two and a half feet high, a red-and-gold turkey carpet fixed to the top. On the front two carved nymphs flanked a Tudor rose. There was no bed linen on the chest; tonight’s page had not arrived yet.

Lord Parr knelt down, with surprising suppleness for a man of his age, and I followed more slowly. He banged the side of the coffer, bringing forth a hollow echo.

‘Firm, solid oak,’ he said. ‘All the Queen’s valuables have been removed and placed elsewhere.’

I studied the lock. It was small but very solid, set firmly into the wood. I ran my fingers over it. ‘No sign of scratches on the metal, nor the wood surrounding it. It was either opened with a key, or by a very skilled locksmith.’

‘I have had the Queen’s valuables taken elsewhere,’ Lord Parr said, opening the chest carefully.

I looked at the empty interior, then bent carefully to study the lock from within. My back was hurting after this long day. No sign of scratches there, either. ‘I have seen many chests and coffers for securing valuables,’ I said. ‘Mostly documents in my case. Often they have two or three locks, and complicated mechanisms inside.’

He nodded agreement. ‘Yes. But this coffer was given to the Queen by her mother. She is very attached to it.’